I don't CHOOSE to pass

Okay, I know that I promised that my next post would be about the queer-as-choice/not-a-choice issue. But! I ended up writing quite a long response to Marti Abernathey's post at the Bilerico Project about trans people who "live stealth," which she says is "the equivalent of 'living in the closet.' " I thought I should share my response because it ended up including a lot of relevant grey ideas (i.e. is there always a dichotomy between passing and not passing? Are those who "pass" necessarily living in shame and denial? etc).

I should say up front that my familiarity with the term "living stealth" was nonexistent before today. So i can't personally address that issue. However, I object to blanket condemnations of people who pass. I seem to "pass" as straight daily, but not because I'm pathetically hiding my oh-so-shameful non-straight self. I "pass" because of two things. One: mainstream America doesn't see a "long-haired, 'femme-y' woman who doesn't wear men's clothes" as possibly being queer. And two: My sexuality isn't my main identifier. I would prefer NOT to label myself as queer actually. I'd rather go with a nice adjective like "proactive" or "irreverent," if asked to describe myself. I don't feel like my queerness is pertinent enough information that I need to change the way I dress/act so that I can scream "gay" to everyone who meets me. Thus, I was really saddened to see a post from the Bilerico Project, who I usually love, casting such a strong condemnation on trans folk who "pass".

The original article at the Bilerico Project

And my response:

Hey, Sarah here, over from Don't Box Us. I really like The Bilerico Project, but I'm sorry to say that I find this post extremely offensive. If you want to live your life Out and proclaiming your roots/who you are—awesome! go for it! I completely support you and your right not to be judged for it. However, I don't really think it's your place to be condemning other people because of the way they choose to live their lives. You do not know these people; you have no possible way of knowing why they decide to live as they do. Wasn't the whole point of the GLBT movement that we should be allowed to live our lives without being condemned because of who we are/who we love/what our original sex was? Where is the difference between your condemnation and the condemnations of homophobes? Both condemnations are based on personal feelings about the way others lead their lives.

I'm not trying to attack you here, but I'm just wondering why we should be excluding/judging people who could be our allies. This sort of condemnation seems to me to only breed animosity within a group that is already facing a lot of discrimination. Why further discriminate against ourselves? I cannot disagree more with your statement that "If you aren't moving us forward, you're setting us back." In fact, I think it is exclusionary judgements like this that set us back, or rather, break us apart.

Also, you seem to be condemening people for passing, and therefore supposedly being ashamed of themselves. However, for some people, their sexual preference or gender identity ISN'T the main adjective they'd use to describe themselves. Maybe for you, it is. That's awesome. Rock it. But for others maybe it's more important to describe themselves as "jewish" or "practical, or "black-haried." That doesn't mean that they're ashamed of themselves.

I'm not trans, so I can't speak to that. However I can speak as a non-straight woman who frequently seems to pass as straight. If someone asked me for adjectives to describe myself, "gay" wouldn't even come into my head. Who I love is important to me, and my participation in the queer community is important to me as well, but it's just not something that I feel should be my main way of defining myself. I'm proud of who I am and I'm care about the equality movement, but I don't think who I love should change the way that people think about me. I just don't feel like it's pertinent information, basically. If it comes up in conversation I'm not going to hide it, but it's not something that makes me feel like I need to wear my hair in a fauxhawk just so that everyone I buy coffee from will know that I'm gay and therefore "not passing."

I'm not bashing ppl who don't pass here--if you can't pass or don't want to, then rock on. I'm just saying that I don't "decide" to pass. The way I wear my hair/clothes is not a statement about my sexuality. There is no "attempting to pass" or "attempting not to pass;" I just live my life the way I am. The assumptions that other people make about my sexuality say nothing about whether I'm cowardly or ashamed of myself. I'm completely proud of who I am. It's just that who I am doesn't happen to be someone who radiates "gay" from every pore. So please don't assume that just because I do pass, that I'm making a conscious decision to gain straight-privilege by hiding myself.

Link-er Cabinet (yuk yuk yuk)

Actually I don't really like that joke. It's probably for the best if no one gets it.

Anyway. Here's a link to an article from Mother Jones about sexual preference ("orientation" as they say) being a choice. The article has a lot of messing around at the beginning about anti-equality people using the gay-as-choice argument to bolster their case, however the last couple pages are quite good. I'm SUPER excited to write an article later in the week about the issue of queerness being a choice. So, SO excited!

Also, an awesome article, again from Mother Jones about the history of police targeting queer people for "indecency" crimes and how Senator Craig could have responded to his arrest in more productive way.

And, finally, much love for The Bilerico Project, a blog dedicated to LGBTQ issues and from whom I get a lot of my information/links. Yay them!

Well, not quite finally, because double-yay for Ilana and C.Kate who posted for the first time within the past week! I am so excited to be writing with all you people!